[SPEAKER_00]: I successfully moved and let me tell ya, it ain't easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a big girl, it's in her big girl apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got an apartment and I feel like I've rigged something because it's a pretty good deal and it's a one bedroom.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just got the tour over FaceTime, and I'm very impressed, and I'm very jealous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I am shocked that I've ever happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really doing some like back channel investigating, trying to find apartments, because in New York, like you can't just go, you can't go on street easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like people say, oh, go on street easy, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if you want to rent stable as a apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: You call random numbers in the phone book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you were not on street.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love my little landlord.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's so lovely.
[SPEAKER_00]: He put in blinds for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: To love your landlord is really a feat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's truly crazy because my last landlord was like a damn goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was just kind of like, you know, we moved in like three days earlier, something, and he charged us for the three days, which I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, okay, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Technically, that is his money, but I feel like a lot of small time landlords would be like, okay, yeah, I'd just be nice about it because it's more about like tenant landlord relationship than it is about money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel like it's more about like the long-term investment of knowing that this person will want to like stay living in this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my last place was just like how the crazy has turned over all these like 21-year-olds who've just moved in they're all Socially maladapted and just like it just sucked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hated it and yeah, he was awful I got like locked out of my apartment because there was this miscommunication with like the broker in the keys and then I had to pay $600 to the locksmith who obviously was scamming me, but it was like one in the morning and then my landlord refused to like reimburse me You're like help me out with it and I was like you just are the worst like so those types of people I'm like Really glad not to be dealing with the him anymore
[SPEAKER_00]: you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you don't want to feel like you're just like a source of income.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want someone to respect the fact that you're a human being living in this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want your land, or to be like, if you died, that would just be like annoying for them, you know, like, you think they're like, oh God, now I have to like clean up the crime scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he like we met him once and my, my roommate was having a hard time, she like cried to him, because the radiator was really loud and he was so mean to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, because he doesn't have to be nice
[SPEAKER_00]: You're at their mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so yeah, I'm so happy every single part of my body aches and hurts like I Because that kind of I hired movers, but I also kind of moved myself where I was kind of bringing up my miscellaneous things that I just didn't want to pack In boxes and I cannot tell you like my sciatic nerve She's squealing.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's squealing.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's not happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole butt hurts.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know self-sufficient lady for better or for worse
[SPEAKER_00]: For better words, I've been drilling, like I feel great, it's really awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've mounted everything in a desk, and like a whole day just unpacking and mounting, and it felt so satisfying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I was like, I was like, I'm every woman, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do feel like I'll reach like grown women's status when I own a drill and know how to use it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can definitely drill Hannah Darling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah, you're good with your hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess that's what drilling requires.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hand dexterity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for your confidence in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does a drill count as a power tool?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us know in the chat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, could you draw a power tool?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you draw a power tool?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I guess so.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then, there was like a, there was like, anyway, as we can't get into the weeds of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Opening the season is a drill-up power tool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah!
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's the beginning of the season.
[SPEAKER_00]: This hiatus, I feel like was not as long as our last ones, I know that we always promise it'll be shorter and shorter than I always get longer, but I feel like it's hard for me to feel like our last season ended a long time ago because we do the bonus episodes in between seasons and so it feels like we just recorded, but actually probably our last season ended a while ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we also start researching like ahead of time so it's not like we're just kind of like twiddling our thumbs or whatever in between.
[SPEAKER_00]: True, but by the time this little ditty comes out probably, it's going to be quite a while after we just spoke like I would have been fully moved in and lounging about and you wouldn't you never know.
[SPEAKER_02]: The scarf I'm knitting presently will be a full scarf and not half a scarf by the time this comes out likely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it'll, it'll go from a baby scarf to an adult scarf.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah's been knitting while we talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: She asked permission.
[SPEAKER_02]: I asked permission, I swear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm an active listener.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Supered to one stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to get back into watching movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been trying to go to one every Tuesday, if not more times a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm about to see the new PTA movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually pretty excited about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've heard good things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to see it when that's coming out here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything comes out later here, it's really annoying in the evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, things do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if it makes you feel better, Dracula, like Luke Besson, did a rendition of Dracula.
[SPEAKER_00]: That looks very similar to Francis Ford Copeland's Dracula, and I want to see it because I'm going to write about it, but I fucking can't because it came out only in France.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if Luke was always like banned in other places.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, but also France has rules where things have to show in theaters before they go on to streaming.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if, like, let's say it struck up a screening or a streaming deal somewhere else, it would still have to probably play in France, and that's why they why.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, but I'd wanted to come out in theaters elsewhere and all on streaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, even had like a box office run.
[SPEAKER_02]: It probably wouldn't if it wasn't for France.
[SPEAKER_02]: It probably would have to zero.
[SPEAKER_00]: It probably I feel like they're good at protecting their art.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us know because every time we talk about Europe all the Europeans are like You don't even know like Europe sucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm sure you guys will have something to say Yes, I won't romanticize Europe any longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry for romanticizing Europe, but Luke Bessel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love France as poor people as Dracula We had spooky season
[SPEAKER_02]: I recently had my annual rewatch of interview with The Vampire and it's always a funny movie because I'll always watch it with people who haven't seen it and I'll be like, it's just this fun silly, can't be vampire movie and then I forget how violent and sexual and kind of strange it is in terms of the vampire is not camp at all
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess the end when he's like, stop whining Louis, but no, Tom Cruise is camp from start to finish, like he's ridiculous, he's like he's like so silly, so uncirious, the entire movie and then Brad Pitt is so serious and brooding that that's also kind of campy, and then Kirsten Duns is like acting like a little like a grown woman, but she's like 11 years old and she's like yelling at Tom Cruise
[SPEAKER_02]: Ugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I know Brad pits like buckle fat as face like his buckle fat removal looking like cheap bones are so funny Well, I watched a video with Kirsten Dunce recently where she was talking about how her experience in that set was apparently amazing and like She said it was like really arduous, but that Brad pit and Tom Cruise which is so funny because these two matter like some of the most Proballabatic bed at all, he went at the moment, but like apparently they were amazing to her They treated her really well and she was like she felt very like protected on set and the director was very like
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay, I can't really- Neil Jordan, Irish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neil Jordan, apparently Neil Jordan was like, she had like a specific acting coach that would help her understand kind of how to be an adult without actually like exposing her to like adult concepts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her performance is like, because I just rewatch it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And every time I'm like, struck by how good it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's actually maybe the best performance I've seen of her in her career.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's phenomenal in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she said that like when she had to look sexy, the acting coach was like, just look like you have, like they wouldn't say, oh, look sexy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd be like, just look like you have like a secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have it, but you don't want to tell anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they were kind of, yeah, but the carrot, oh my god, it's such a good movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And her outfits are amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I kind of have hair like hers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I could be here for Halloween, but probably not enough people would like appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be weirdly similar to your, whatever, have a game.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like strangely similar.
[SPEAKER_02]: A movie where to me, it's not obscure at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like to the right people, not obscure at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to me, the people, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to Halloween parties, I'm like having to constantly explain it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I'm like, this is way too much work and effort for something that people don't get.
[SPEAKER_02]: The baby Jane one was especially bad because I also looked horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true, um, no, you didn't look horrible way.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you wait?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, you didn't look horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: You look to me thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I look scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, God forbid.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just felt like I was wearing a lot of like wig and makeup and whatnot to not have anyone really Anders, not just be like, oh, I didn't know you were maybe Jane just be like, I don't know that movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was like, well, this is an away story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's uncultured.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know what to be this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm fretting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna be carry Bradshaw.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm just gonna be an elf again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've really lost my loss for Halloween.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's in the university I was doing like three costumes like every Halloween and I think it just got fatigued.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't do that here, everyone's like, yeah, Halloween's not here, like in England is not like it is in North America and that's no fun because I was ready to play in like three costumes.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't do Hallows Eve.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, I really have to say to my accents.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're really funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm Maya, and I'm Hannah, and this is rehash, a podcast about the internet phenomena that strike an nerve in our culture, only to be quickly forgotten, but we think are due for a revisiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: This season is about communication on the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Online, we may have shot the shit, but have we also shot the messenger?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you like our show and you want to hear more from us, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com-re-podcast where we have bonus episodes and early access to our regular programming.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't want to join the Patreon, feel free to rate and review us on Spotify and Apple podcast because that helps us out a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode is about something we all do, maybe except Hannah, but swear that we never do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a collective dirty secret we all seem to be hiding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're talking about creeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is the act of visiting someone's online profiles to gain information about them, which can range from a simple scroll down their Instagram grid to much more complex activities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited for this episode because I think it's actually really cathartic to talk about this kind of thing out in the open.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to use it as an opportunity to ask whether creeping is actually as creepy as the name suggests and whether or not this is a healthy behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to kick off this juicy topic, I asked our listeners to spill about their relationships to creeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd post it like a story about it, you know, whether or not they do it, what their methods are, and you know, if they have any crazy stories about it, there was a range, like a lot of people just basically disclose that they had fake accounts that they stalked people from.
[SPEAKER_00]: But some of you are...
[SPEAKER_00]: truly diabolical.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Ingrid goes west type shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I was like, oh my god, the vulnerability is incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Hannah, we're gonna do like a rapid fire around.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to take turns reading each of these aloud.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all pretty short.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hannah, you go first.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I stalked my therapist goodreads account.
[SPEAKER_02]: Incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love to figure out where people live.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love to screen shot their backgrounds and image search.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a cam girl and very serious about my safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun to see how dumb people can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Ellen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three words for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vended, Spotify, Strava.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know you could follow people unfinted.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll find out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pinterest is often a very fruitful source, but also feels the most embarrassing for the creeper.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I have my entire Pinterest on like private for that reason because my Pinterest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, I don't even want any of you to try and find my Pinterest, my Pinterest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pinterest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, stocked my now X's X on Spotify and found out they were still sharing songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was like when I found out my high school boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out that he was like kind of emotionally cheating on me because he had a snap streak with this other girl that I was worried about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, they beat an R snap streak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Need to, and he left me for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you type any detail about someone on Google, you can find them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, found random people from the street who were hot that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I dated a guy who then told me he sees me as his sister and a few years later, I went on his IG profile and liked one of his first posts because he was kind of hot plus I was feeling lonely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my IG crashed and I accidentally liked his old ass post.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any time I like a guy, I try to find his mum on Facebook because I know she'll have all the tea.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have like 200 people blocked because I like to look at their stories, ha ha, I also like to use Instagram anonymous when I don't feel like unblocking people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's Instagram anonymous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, there's so many different little apps that you can get, but shroud your identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: had a parasocial crush on a girl I followed on Tumblr who used a fake name, so I went through the followers of an artist she was friends with on Insta, till I found her and found out her real name and where she lives and her real life friends, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't do anything, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can, for real, learn everything about someone by their Venmo history.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's crazy for everyday people to have their IG accounts public.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they comment something rude and I can just click on their account and see where their kid goes to school.
[SPEAKER_02]: I creeped on a crush, showed my mom a pic from 2014, and she accidentally posted it to her Facebook where a bunch of me and the crush' mutuals saw it, that's like, so brutal.
[SPEAKER_00]: LinkedIn, to see their job, Google for address, sometimes even Spotify.
[SPEAKER_00]: Need to know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: For their address, duh.
[SPEAKER_02]: I creep on my compulsive wire X roommate to see if people have figured it out yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stocked my girlfriend's X daily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turned out she was stalking me back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, BPD Lesbians.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes!
[SPEAKER_00]: The DVD community is big on the, the like, and this is a shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yes, Instagram story, viewer, white pages, and the way back machine to view deleted accounts, should... X-Friend used poor security of Gmail accounts to wipe my whole Google Drive out of spite, but the fuck in the scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: One time I found Phoebe Bridger's parents divorce record, which led me to find her grandmother's obituary and childhood address.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the last time I went to Google Page 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_02]: In university, I had an entire anonymous second feminist themed Instagram, which I used.
[SPEAKER_02]: It worked really well on Gurli's, you had private accounts.
[SPEAKER_02]: They always accepted my follow evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like performative lesbian or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: The performative lesbian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, I once signed someone in brackets enemy up for the Scientology newsletter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know of that count That's amazing though.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually so genius.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we've got a little bit of everything here We've got people wanting to know more about celebrities or micro celebrities
[SPEAKER_00]: people looking at their crushes, holding people accountable for bad behavior, safety checks, provocation of their enemies, on a very, very wide array of platforms.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sure you might be wondering then, what actually is creeping?
[SPEAKER_00]: Also known as websluting, lurking, surveillance, and cyber stalking, or just stalking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I usually say stalking, like, oh, I stalked,
[SPEAKER_01]: So I creep, yeah, just keep it on the down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I read this 2020.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I read this 2021 study which describes creeping as what they call social information seeking, which distinguishes itself from other types of information seeking because it involves an individual intentionally looking for personal data about another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that usually this is driven by the desire to reduce uncertainty about that person or what they represent.
[SPEAKER_00]: In communication studies they call it uncertainty reduction theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: And typically this kind of social information seeking behavior is a very passive behavior where you're able to gather information about a person without speaking to them directly.
[SPEAKER_00]: They use the example of observing someone talking to other people at a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: where you're like, oh, this is the kind of person they are based on what I've like overheard of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the case of the internet, it's way more passive, obviously, because you can gather information from the comfort of your own home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't got to go to parties, don't worry, Gen Z.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our followers, hey, when we do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah, I know what your answer is going to be, but based on all those anecdotes and the definition I just provided, can you tell us, do you creep?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, I don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not really in the way that like, majority of my friends do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure when I was younger, like, maybe I would have made more of an effort too, but like, not compared to some of the girlies I'm friends with.
[SPEAKER_02]: I...
[SPEAKER_02]: wish I had like a good answer as to like why I don't like it's not really a moral thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's inherently a laziness thing and that I struggle to keep up with my like long distance relationships with people via text that I actually care about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I actually don't have any like attention span.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah sending me L.O.L.
[SPEAKER_00]: to like, I send her like 20 minutes to just go to L.O.L.L.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then she'll respond to each message like she'll do the reply on my message and it'll just be like a single word response to each one and miss like three of the different messages that I sent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, how dare you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm actually like really, really, really bad at keeping lines of communication open with people that I care about.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, I actually just don't have it in my brain to enter a parasocial relationship with someone online.
[SPEAKER_02]: I spend a lot of time in my early 20s really limiting my Instagram usage, and I'm definitely on it more now, but I would say like, I make an effort to not check who's viewed my stories.
[SPEAKER_02]: I often don't go through who's liked my photos.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't want to be thinking about people in that way, and so I just feel like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Once I start thinking about creeping other people, then I think about myself being crept, and I don't really like that side of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm just also like an old woman on social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're just like kind of uncurious about certain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you just don't really...
[SPEAKER_00]: You are like, you just have to know you're not like, you know, like wanting to know, you know, or you're just a really good will power.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think part of it is a will power thing, especially with my stories.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think like, so I have done really intensive research online.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had this like ongoing research project about my grandfather who I never met.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been looking for his art, and I've also been looking to fill in sort of blanks about his life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, like things I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really tried to find his like second wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: I Was creeping up women like on Facebook that had her name in Toronto trying to find her and then I approached one of the women and a Tim Horton's being like, are you this person?
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, no, LOL.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like I have the capacity to creep, but I think
[SPEAKER_02]: I honestly, I just, like, nobody's, like, that important to me in that sense that I need to keep tabs on them, unless they're in my life, and then I already know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is one of those things that Hannah is so baffled by, like, if I ever do that, she's like, what, like, you want to do that, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like one of the things that you think, you think everyone, you think no one's doing this, but then, you're so baffled when you find out everyone's doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess so.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's impressive, they're really impressive about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when you're anxious about someone you're dating and you want to know or you've recently broken up with and we're going to get into this more but like you can find out who that person is seeing currently just by going to their following and like I've done this it's we'll talk about it doesn't feel good but it's definitely like a curiosity killed the cat kind of thing like I feel very I'm nosy like I'm just I think you're not very nosy like I feel like I'm quite nosy and I respect like you're not really like a
[SPEAKER_02]: I see I'm a gossip in like person and if I'm in someone's room I do want to go through all those stuff like don't get me wrong but I don't also have to say but I also I do have a team of girly such as my yeah who I can technically deploy to go and seek and find this information on my behalf oh I will find it I will find it
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have some friends who will, they have, like, they should be fucking higher by the FBI or C-Cis or whatever, whatever Canada has.
[SPEAKER_00]: C-Cis, C-Cis, C-Cis, okay, well, yeah, I know this about my dear Hannah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I do think it's like a little bit embarrassing if me, it's just one of my, it's not embarrassing!
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think it's embarrassing to creep people.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, everybody does it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody does it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even it's shameful, it's a great shame, like people don't talk about it openly, it's like, it's like embarrassing, like people, well, I will talk about why it's embarrassing, but I am also, I am a creeper, I love to creep, I find it very enjoyable sometimes and sometimes I find it really devastating because I find information that I didn't actually want to know or like wasn't good for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are also have been instances where I'll learn something about someone by creeping their profile and then like mention it to them in person for getting that it's something that they've never told me about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then have to kind of like lie on this spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when they're like, oh, where'd you hear that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like did I tell you that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I also have like accidentally like people's photos when you're creeping like, there's a reason why I don't even care about not accidentally like their photo and you're like, oh, this makes it look like I'm like obsessed and I'm dying to know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like creeping is my version of like doom scroll.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not really scrolling down my explore paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not really like scrolling down reels and stuff, but I do find just kind of like being nosy.
[SPEAKER_00]: My version of that, like my brain raw.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually think that that's like a more productive or personalized version because I do doom scroll.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's like a big waste of my time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, well, yeah, we'll talk about whether or not this is what it's activating inside your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first, there was this northern report that came out a couple of years ago, which found that Gen Z and Millennials, so people ages 18 to 42, had what they refer to as, concerningly relaxed attitudes about online stalking.
[SPEAKER_00]: A disproportionate number of people in this age group said that they didn't care if they were stalked online by a current or
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think they answered that like what why are we so lucid goosey?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's because We have had our entire lives on social media like we've put so much out there to be consumed I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's that thing where when I was in high school people always like Oh, you should be careful with your post on Facebook because future and play
[SPEAKER_02]: players will look at it or, you know, universities.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, I remember having a very locks attitude about it back then because I was just like, but everybody's doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just feels like this is an extension of our lives now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like such a vital part of our social lives that it feels really weird to have this very clean cut social media presence.
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of felt like antithetical to the purpose of social media to have it be so kind of prim and shut down, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea is to share like they want you to share.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, of course, I'm going to share this photo of me with like a red solo cup in my hand, because I want people to think I'm cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think maybe we just know that it's inevitable.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're very aware of the fact that you can find anything on the internet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I guess, like, most of us are also doing it to other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: People are also keeping tabs on other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just sort of feels like it's fair game.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ultimately, I mean like what counts as stalking and like creeping, you know, it varies, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if it's something that's actually not meant for public consumption at all, I think I'm sure more people would have more like hesitation about that, but anything that's on like a public profile, it's even sometimes hard to even call that stalking because it's there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not something you have to look for.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree, like, I think that, I don't know, that whole stranger danger error of the internet just really dissipated, like, you know, thinking back to those early episodes of Dukrasi, the next generation, which are all about stranger danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that was kind of the topic that you were for when we were young kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: The amount of, like, after school specials, we'd watch in school for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh yeah, and I think you kind of surf you on like an old-fuddy daddy even talking about that kind of thing now because If it feels like there were so many PSAs it was almost like a top down Scooling about this if you was kind of like when people talk about phone addiction like it just kind of a list It's an eye roll even though like it's fully true.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so fucking lucky hands, but it's like oh Like it's very old man yells at cloud even though it shouldn't be
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I also feel like we're to be like, yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're just a lax a better personal information being on the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either because we like trust these tech companies more, or because we know that we don't own that information anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, I do think it's like a mixture of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think it's us being too reliant on and like addicted to the internet to really care.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the like least answer because it's like, it is just our whole lives now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's sort of the gist of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's it's become this thing where we're like the cats out of the bat not the cats out of the bag You can't it's like you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, oh Kind of like the cats of the bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've never heard the toothpaste in the tube though
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like already, like we can't undo this thing where our lives are so prevalent on the internet and like there is so much documentation of our existence on the internet, like we've already kind of started that and we started it from a young enough age where we didn't really have like the foresight to really reflect on whether or not we wanted that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at this point it's sort of like, I've been doing this since I was 14, I've been posting online, I feels weird to suddenly be all like weird about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, our digital footprints, yeah, are just so robust.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so far reaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I just did, and this is just actually not a sponsored thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm about to say, but I just did this sponsorship from my last video with, like, in Cognito, which is a company that basically finds information that was released about you all over the internet and, like, sold by data brokers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, our information is just literally everywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really hard to get it back, unless, yeah, you're using some sort of service, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: They call me that's like deleting stuff for you, but it's like almost impossible to know where your information is gone when you release that information Like it's just yeah being digital natives.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just also out there also like I don't know I do wonder I didn't fully read the entire study, but I kind of wonder what their definition of stalking was because stalking is also such a colloquial term now I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure they specified I do think it's to be a good opportunity to say that
[SPEAKER_00]: creeping and actual stalking are not the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, first I think the word stalking, like I said, has become synonymous with creeping, which I'm sure is diminished its severity over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But while the report outlines some actual serious stalking behaviors as being like,
[SPEAKER_00]: The use of stalkerware and creepware apps that allow you to monitor someone's phone activities.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this psychologist named Emma Short, who says that actual cyber stalking is basically when an individual becomes aware of you gaining information about them and that the information is used to make them feel uncomfortable or afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of a baby reindeer style.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a creeping is distinguished more by its passivity and once it becomes more active is when it starts to qualify as stalking, which is definitely a slippery slope.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're creeping, the point is to stay anonymous.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the point is to make the fact that you're creeping never come to light and that's why it's so humiliating when you accidentally like someone's old photos.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's no kind of end-gold to somehow make contact with that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more like, you got the information that stays in your brain and then you kind of just move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of what it is, but it is slippery slope.
[SPEAKER_00]: But regardless, Hannah, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is creeping inherently creepy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it's passive, not actual stalking.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that I would be going against all of the down bad girlies of the 21st century if I said it was inherently an across the board creepy to keep tabs on people and social media because
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyone who's had a crush that they like don't know much about or like someone that they met at a party has had that in synced to The very least find their Instagram profile, but then like, you know, maybe Go further because you're trying to like fill in these blanks and I think
[SPEAKER_02]: We have access at our fingertips to all this information about people who we haven't even really gotten to know yet in a way that I guess people before didn't have but probably would have utilized it if they did you know so it's like The things are girly with like an intense crush will do
[SPEAKER_02]: those things eat up your brain.
[SPEAKER_02]: They give you like they're like a parasite.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's me trying to break into one direction's true best, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's it's there's something in here and about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something like how much of it is just like in Demix like human behavior I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do have like mixed feelings about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found this Reddit post that I thought was really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're essentially OP was saying that it's crazy that people would find someone else viewing their social profiles to be creepy when the whole point of social media is to be seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they talk about older social sites where they're like, we had web pages with content we had written that we wanted as many people as possible to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't spend all those hours perfecting JavaScript, mouse trailers.
[SPEAKER_00]: and visitor counters and guest books for nothing, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: All on these web pages we might have listed all sorts of borderline personal, borderline personally identifying information or in some cases all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they go, maybe they want their Facebook, like they're talking about the people who find creeping creepy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they want their Facebook to be like their high school bedroom that they've decorated with posters of Ricky Martin, and they have a little diary where they've pitch about their poor tragic suburban lives, and nobody else is allowed in there, and if you go in and look at their photos or remember too specifically their words, you're a terrible creep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except instead of a bedroom they have erected a large bulletin board in the town square.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought this invited this like really fascinating question about the purpose of a social media profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, is it the bedroom wall or is it the town square bullison board?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you think maybe this is like changed over time?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think when we were on Facebook and high school, it was like the only people I was gonna have on Facebook were people that I knew and people from high school and other teenagers and the world felt so small.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I always felt very weird having family.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, on Facebook, because I was absolutely just posting stuff for an audience of my peers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that was always like a funny thing to think about when I posted on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it did feel like an extension more so of your bedroom,
[SPEAKER_02]: because it felt kind of safe, like it felt confined, even though it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like there's something about Facebook that kind of feels like there was walls up around it, even though there's absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas Instagram, that feels like a bulletin board.
[SPEAKER_02]: That feels like if you have a public Instagram account, which I do, I'm like, I know that anybody...
[SPEAKER_02]: is going to look at anything I post.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have to either accept that or be very conscious about what I'm posting because it's just it's there and I don't know I was I was seeing someone who doesn't have Instagram and after our first day or even before he'd like
[SPEAKER_02]: told me he looked me up, he googled me and found stuff, you know, that I like things I'd part taken in, part took in, you know, the podcast also, my Instagram, all this stuff, and I was like, why did you do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was like, but it's there, it's online, you did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, totally, it's true, it's not wrong, but I mean, one, I hated the fact that he wasn't on Instagram, and so I couldn't necessarily reciprocate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and also it was like, I know it's there, but part of me does feel like as technology changes and as like the places where we spend our time online shift and change I kind of sometimes I would guess in my head feel like my older versions of myself that I guess they're still documentation of online
[SPEAKER_02]: are things that I get to leave in the past the way I would have passed self, and I know that that's a bit naive, and maybe I shouldn't have been framing my thinking that way, but also I think it's respectful to maybe allow people to have that kind of separation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I have a really similar thing in dating, like the last person I dated, you know, I have like a pretty wide spread internet presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he didn't have any like I didn't know his Instagram.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wouldn't tell me like I didn't know it was last night Like I didn't know anything about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just had his first name, which I wanted to keep it up because I prefer not really if it's like a hinge kind of thing I don't want to know much about someone until I actually get to know them like I don't I want to
[SPEAKER_00]: curved my instinct to creep because I'd rather be more organic.
[SPEAKER_00]: But on my hinge, I had my name and then I had like, I had like film critical in there, which I don't call myself that anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so annoying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I am a film critic really, but I have an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he just looked up my first name and film critic and I came up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he searched like everything and it's like, I didn't want to talk about my job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't like talking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really don't like talking about it, especially on the date.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd rather tell someone about that weight later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt a little violated like I just, and I couldn't be mad at him because he was like, yeah, like exactly like your person's like, it is out there, but I didn't offer up that information in person, but then it's like I can't even talk because I would have gone and found information about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did, not a ton of information, but you know, I would have tried my best.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's hard to be like mad at someone when they do that because it is natural, but it is like, oh, I just wish you didn't, especially in a dating context.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, and I just think there's like a scope of like, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand being curious, but then it's also like, I guess I do feel like, I know I was just saying like, oh, we're all used to in like accepting of the idea that we're being technically creeped online all the time and like we're putting stuff out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't mind my current iterations of my like internet presence being subject to that, but there's something about like, I don't know, your older former self
[SPEAKER_00]: when you're not offering it up like I'd rather show someone myself than have them see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It depends though so you are saying you know differences between Facebook and Instagram and there's actually a word for this so something I learned actually back in school I did this like kind of like tech related class I can't remember the name of it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, we learned in that class this idea of affordances, which are basically the properties of an object that allow the user of that object to take specific actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: The affordances, for example, of social media are really wide-ranging.
[SPEAKER_00]: They afford like accessibility and anonymity, replicability, so like you can
[SPEAKER_00]: uh copy like you can screenshot something and put it somewhere else visibility, searchability but what they all lend to like what they afford for us is this ability and instinct to creep like they are kind it's like almost built it like there's a built in mechanism to social media that
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of asks people to do that, two varying degrees.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I do think that there is like a nosiness that's inherent to human nature and I think too many extent snooping.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can no longer be regarded as creepy across the board because there are these built-in mechanisms to these platforms that are so prevalent in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I agree with what a lot of the responses to that original that they're like Reddit post saying, which is that it does depend on the effort that someone is putting in, like, how far back are you going?
[SPEAKER_00]: old photos of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you using the information you obtained?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this guy telling you to your face that he did that and like making you feel a bit weird or uncomfortable when he Maybe he could have done it and just kind of cut it to himself like more possibly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of us do it, but it's, you know, when you bring it to someone, it makes them feel kind of weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's hard for people to agree on this question of craving being creepy because social media sites are considered what they call mass personal channels of communication.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's like blended elements of the interpersonal and to the mass media.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, you have like your friends, you're posting to your followers, you're posting what you ate for dinner, but then there's the mass media element where if you have a public profile,
[SPEAKER_00]: anyone can go see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the term perfectly kind of encapsulates this tension between someone putting information out there and creating being considered creepy because mass and personal are just really contradictory concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think as the affordances of social media platforms change so does our ability to or desire to creep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like on Facebook, your contacts are called friends who you have to accept in order for them to view most of your profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were a lot of like options for like what would be out there to someone who isn't
[SPEAKER_00]: and so there's more of like an interpersonal element there, it's a bit more of like a networking thing, but on Instagram they're called followers and you're like a mini celebrity and if you have a public Instagram then like anyone can look at yourself like you're saying regardless of whether or not they follow you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are many reasons for why we create people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of which we've already discussed, there's the passive part, you know, we get to skip that social step of getting to know someone in order to gain information about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people do what they call professional stalking, which is basically figuring out how someone got to the career that they're in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I always like doing a research or like trying to emulate someone closely in your field.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is the slew thing element so like people digging up information typically in order to like, you know, safeguard themselves, you know, if you're going on a date.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, and you want to know if this person's real or on the flip side to make someone else unsafe, so like to dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, that falls more than stocking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's a major element of voyeurism at play.
[SPEAKER_00]: One person in an article I was reading said that they had always felt like an outsider in the LGBT community, so they would creep in order to live by curiously through people who were living with a call idealized gay lifestyles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really wonder, like, going back to that bonus episode, we did about best rest, a very long time ago, which you can find on our Patreon, shameless plug.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you creep our Patreon, do you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly!
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that whole idea of the demonic turn applies here?
[SPEAKER_00]: So for context, the demonic turn is this theory by Graham Turner, which is about how new media has produced ordinary people at celebrities.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote it back in 2009, so he was mostly referring to reality TV, but we see it become more and more of a thing with influencers going from regular people to celebrities in their own right, for example.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'm wondering if the
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the demonic turn is more about these industries like taking unprepared and not unsuspecting, but people who are technically to some degree can essentially agree to participate in a star-making process.
[SPEAKER_02]: So influencers that make sense because it's like regular people who are massing and like tending to followings
[SPEAKER_02]: would be an example of it, but I think with creeping, I guess maybe it's this idea that we're all treating social media now, like we're like influencers, like we're speaking to a following, but I don't necessarily think that that's
[SPEAKER_02]: how most people I know actually use in Instagram.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I mean personally I still use even though my following has become slightly more made up of like people I don't know personally.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still kind of use my Instagram like it's just my normal Instagram.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well me too mostly yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I post as if I'm posting to my friends I keep it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like feels more like a private profile.
[SPEAKER_02]: even though it's like technically not, but I don't necessarily like, I don't know, it's hard to say, because it's like, I don't necessarily think that the demonic turn fully applies here, but why would I have to hear your theory if you had?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I guess I wasn't looking at it from the perspective of like people's intentions about what they're posting on their profiles and more like the people who are creeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think when it's distilled even more down to like, okay, well, from a more entertainment perspective,
[SPEAKER_00]: We are using, you know, these influencers as a source of entertainment and distilled even more here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like we're using regular people as a source of entertainment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like completely private citizens who are not even influencers non-firal become like private celebrities to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: People that will stalk regularly because we want to emulate them like this person, stalking people who are living these idealized gay lifestyles or stalking people because you wish you had that job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it feels kind of like an even more like microcosmic.
[SPEAKER_00]: example of to me a little bit the gemonic turn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's like a one to one comparison obviously, but I do think I found that kind of interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got what you're saying, I think that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think to me, it feels more in line with gossip where, you know, thinking about like pre-internet, era, whatever, like communities or talons or whatever, there'd be people who were more like subject to gossip or like whose antics would kind of be followed more closely.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'd have whisper networks about different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that in a way,
[SPEAKER_02]: those people end up becoming like you're saying like many celebrities within these smaller contexts and it's one normal person closely watching the behaviors of like another normal person online feels maybe just more like an evolution of that where you know we already had those instincts but we didn't necessarily have the resources to fully like actualize them to the
[SPEAKER_02]: you know like maybe back in the day like a bunch of like ladies chitchatting about one another in the salon like if they had access to someone's Instagram they would have done exactly what girls are doing in their group chats today you know yeah it's like snoopy more interpersonal yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I don't necessarily know if when we're like stalking someone online, if that's us treating them like a celebrity and the traditional sense, so much as it is just like an object of fascination.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody's behaviors, what someone does, like their life just has to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that that's kind of what influencers are to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like lifestyle influencers, we do just kind of want to know what they're up to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they're not doing much else other than giving us an insight, like vloggers, for example.
[SPEAKER_00]: into their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we are kind of like, hmmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think influences are also feeding us the illusion of a mutual relationship a bit more.
[SPEAKER_02]: They address the public.
[SPEAKER_02]: They address the audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're formatting things in a very specific way where we're not like filling in the blanks.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're kind of presenting us a narrative to us that feels different than somebody who's posting more madamely and we're sort of trying to work out like, oh, what's in the background there?
[SPEAKER_00]: what's going on who are they with you know interesting I mean I do I do what I mean I think creeping can be applied to influencers too like look at what happens with like love island people like people listening to their phone calls in the background of a video like I do think there's no snooping with influencers too
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't necessarily agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think there's element of treating people we stalk as celebrities, because I think there's a pair of social element to it, or there can be, and I think this does lead me to my next section, but tying in this private celebrity idea that I'm thinking of, there's this writer named Morgan Sullivan who wrote this piece and the cut that was a love letter to the Instagram accounts of her exes exes, where she talks about how she routinely creeps the girls that her partner is used to date.
[SPEAKER_00]: long after she and that partner would break up.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says it was partly at a jealousy, but also partly at a curiosity and, quote, they were the center of every fiction story I'd write in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where I'd grant myself a answer to questions like, did they make my ex happier?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was a sex better?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I think also plays it about what you're saying about the like gossipiness, but
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think within that like uncertainty reduction idea creeping can almost be considered a form of like controlling unknowns like Almost away of coping with anxiety at least in this concept?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally totally.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I mean I think that's probably one of the reasons that I tend to abstain from that kind of behavior is that
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we will do so much with the smallest nugget of information, especially when it's taken out of context.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while we think we're like soothing our anxieties, while we think we're trying to give ourselves peace of mind, I think that they feel them because once you've kind of got that first bit, it's just going to snowball.
[SPEAKER_02]: because you'll never know everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like most of the time, the context, the story behind something is innocuous.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to like reveal anything like most of the time we're reading into things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that like it is this sort of way to feed our anxieties that we think is like soothing them and I think we always think that knowledge is you know like it's better to know something than to not know something but it often is better not to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think part of it is what she's saying, like we think we need that information to put ourselves at ease.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then also, that doesn't fully account for what happens when, like, she no longer has a romantic stake in these women, which I find interesting, like, you know, she's not really asking, like, oh, was the sex better with them when she's also broken up with this guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a writer named Laura Pitcher who has this amazing piece from a couple years ago, where she references Sullivan's article and refers to this phenomenon as the parasocial other woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: which I was like, this is watershed, this is amazing, and she basically talks about she talks a lot about this like coming from a place of insecurity because women are so often placed in competition with one another, she also touches on the voyeurism aspect where like looking up exes is a form of like keeping up with the Jones is kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: Like just basic curiosity wanting to emulate someone which I think kind of ties into the influence or element of it What I'm trying to think of like what's fashionable or like I'm trying to think of an outfit I want to wear like I'm not looking up influencers like I'm looking up like other girls in my orbit Who I think are fashionable and to me they're kind of like many celebrities like if I were to meet them I'd be like hey sometimes this girls I don't even know but they're kind of like tangentially related And I'm like oh and then I meet them in person and I'm like whoa I've stalked you so many times
[SPEAKER_00]: She also talks about how this kind of creeping is routineized.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the routine part really struck me because as someone who also does this, there are like X's that I have from like years ago, I still stalk their X's.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm like, what's she up to, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that creeping, especially like women who you feel both in competition with, but also curious about can be super addictive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I do think we're getting little rushes of dopamine from super basic information collection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine like what about it feels so stimulating, I guess?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when it's like we love to compare ourselves to each other, like we love to feel that fire.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think part of it is sort of like there's something massacistic about it because it is sort of a way to keep tabs on somebody in a way that is like confirming things we feel about ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just like, if you're feeling insecure about things, you're going to look to someone for reference.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're also feeling the position of somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's a bit of like a doubles thing going on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a bit of like an identity sort of David Lynch, like we're turning into each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst is when they kind of look like you and you're like, oh no, I hate you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it makes sense that you'd be like, okay, well, we're both, we've both been with this person so we must have some similarities to some capacity and then you're like, well, what didn't work out with these two and then what worked for them, but then maybe isn't working here like I think it all makes sense, but I do think again.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is bad for us like I totally get it and I think people become emotionally attached to these things but it's like well that's funny because this brings me to a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think there's an argument for creeping actually being a healthy activity?
[SPEAKER_02]: I would be, I would actually be fascinated to hear someone's argument for being a healthy activity, because I'm sure somebody could craft like a very convincing stance on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think curiosity killed the cat, like that brings true today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that, that is, there is so much truth in that, and I do think that ultimately, like, when we've decided to creep someone, it's not because we're like feeling awesome about
[SPEAKER_02]: Doing it as a past time a lot of the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's usually because We're feeling like shit, or maybe it's just compulsive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's also compulsive.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like I could be feeling great and I'll still do it Like I'm very much of the parasocial kind of aspect of it more than any but I also it's like not necessarily always like super harmful or detrimental per se But I don't know if it's
[SPEAKER_02]: good for you to be partaking in like a one-sided obsession with another person generally, but I don't know but maybe I'm wrong maybe somebody has like a really healthy reason for doing it and I would be very fascinated to hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's like a couple things that I was thinking of that I don't know if healthy is the right word, but I do think it's made things feel safer to a degree, especially as it pertains to dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think personally, I don't ever feel too terrified about going on a hinge date these days because I can usually pretty easily find someone's information if I wanted to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think it can be a pretty interesting skill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of technological literacy and like deductive logic being applied here, at the way that it's kind of activating your brain is interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: One person who was interviewed by Vice said that they're a recruiter for an influencer marketing agency and that they're creeping abilities became an actual transferable skill, which made them really good with their job because they were like, I was creeping all the time before I got hired.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, I also think on top of that, on top of the potential for actual stalking, it is like a double edge sword, where like you were saying we do have this problem of over exposure like way too much information being available about people and I think this can be harmful both in the sense that you can get a false impression of someone and idealize them in your head.
[SPEAKER_00]: And get insecure anxious, like the amount of girls I know who look through like I do the following section of the guys they've started dating or recently broken up with to know exactly who he's talking to or dating is just wild and most the time it only brings them misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to end, I wanted to read out a submission from a listener that really stuck out to me because I thought it was really poignant and revealed a lot about the act of creeping and what it means to us and why we do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what they said, I have this now X best friend from middle school until now in our mid to late 20s.
[SPEAKER_00]: From 2022 until this May, we called each other maybe four nights a week and have worked on research projects together in both our masters and PhD programs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We currently still share a phone plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't talked in five months since she goes to me after my cancer diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep saying this is the week I finally blog and then follow her on everything, but I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had her muted for months, but every week or so I search her accounts and watch her stories to see what she's up to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look through the following tab to see what they've been getting into lately.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get texts maybe once a week from Verizon about a phone plan with someone who isn't in my life anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the first times I felt haunted by someone, even though I still seek out and indulge that haunting.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you make of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: First off, I'll fuck that person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll fuck that person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fuck that person.
[SPEAKER_02]: That feels like to me, definitely like less.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, there's this girl who's sort of in my orbit or who's dated the same person as me and we're keeping tabs on her, because I'm,
[SPEAKER_02]: into cure a jealous kind of way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that to me is more like what people will use to hire private investigators for because you just like need to know that someone exists and like I understand like there in that position like needing an entire private investigators for all sorts of reasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, this is very true.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is like this to me and like this is a reasonable thing where you would be, yes, obviously.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've been left with this big question mark with like no closure about something and also like are deeply hurt by someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say the other person's behavior is like far more insidious than like any squitton quote creeping in this situation, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess I'm not really asking whether or not it's reasonable in relation to everything else like I think I'm thinking I'm thinking of it more generally as it relates to the concept of creeping and like what it does to us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because like obviously there's like variations and in like what can be considered good or bad?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm not I think it's all over the map, but uh
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally think they're use of the word haunted was really beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it feels like so much of what creeping is is just like you're earning her longing to varying extremes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do wonder how much creeping is stalling us from moving on in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: In every way, like you're saying, you know, this one-sided obsession, how healthy can that be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there is a sense of stagnation that social media already facilitates, like bed raw.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be the dictionary soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it isn't already honestly,
[SPEAKER_00]: But also this like cultural passivity is something that I think I think about that a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really want to write a book about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think in many ways these more parasocial forms of creeping make me really sad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I totally understand this specific person's anecdote is like very heightened and
[SPEAKER_00]: tragic and I totally understand their desire to creep their friends and I think in a way that's it like a friend break up is a real loss so my my concept of haunted isn't like necessarily specific to this scenario but what they said about being haunted even if you're like seeking out and indulging that haunting
[SPEAKER_00]: I just thought that was really interesting, like I do think while social sites are basically just like mediators here, they're definitely encouraging and like tempting us to lurk, but that does render us kind of passive forever, like change to people who don't really exist in our lives, and any real way anymore, or exist at all in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think...
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I just, it made me think of it like stagnation and like the fact that you can't just like go, so like, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reading one of the heights right now, and maybe think a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it's good for us to have this like window I suppose into people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I think,
[SPEAKER_02]: Closers are luxury, and it's not necessarily when we're often or always afforded.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that can be a really painful It can be really hard to To go without but then I do like it
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's one of those things that you have to kind of accept and come to terms with and find your own closure, and I think that that is hard work to do, and it is much easier to like you're saying to just kind of delay that process to
[SPEAKER_02]: to stay in this in between where you don't really have to accept that someone is out of your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, every breakup I've ever had, I immediately mute or unfollow or just like make it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not being confronted with the presence of that person because I know
[SPEAKER_02]: that my instinct is to want to see.
[SPEAKER_02]: And once I see it, I'm going to like want to see more and it's your curious and your mind jumps to places, but I find it so, so, so helpful to just not to just cut it off if you can into like form, I guess the other closure that it's
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think social sites know that like they know that they know that our instinct is not to mute or block like our instinct is to want to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean it's similar to phone addiction in general, which is like meeting to keep us on our phones, but like there is just this element of social sites, like even thinking about the social network, for example,
[SPEAKER_00]: the way that movie ends is with like jazzy iceberg's bargsockerberg like refreshing his ex-girlfriend's Facebook page and it's kind of like this big question mark of like oh is this like Pandora's box that he opened really a good thing you know it's a good for anyone including him and I think
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think creeping in all its forms, creeping someone before you meet them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think is, you know, you're going to do too much information about them getting an idea of them creeping someone you'll never meet is attaching you to someone that you don't have a connection to and like making you You're in for for their lifestyle in a way that
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe downplays your own lifestyle, creeping someone who left your life, keeps you attached to someone who you should move on from like, it just feels like ultimately stalling us or wanting to keep us, it just wanted to keep us on our phone, essentially.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and sitting, wroughting inside of our beds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that, like, you know, social media is soul twice as like this false promise of like being connected to each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, distance doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever, like time doesn't matter, like all of these things become irrelevant because we can be connected through these devices.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while on one side, you know, right now I'm talking to you on WhatsApp, and I haven't seen you in a year.
[SPEAKER_02]: And...
[SPEAKER_02]: This has been our means of keeping in touch and in some ways that it's like, you know, a great feature of it, but in other ways it's like, there's a reason people go in and out of our lives coming out of our lives and it's not healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it also like, I haven't fully felt the loss of not seeing you for a year because we're talking on the phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's really like, I have not seen you physically.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, I think that realization was really fucking weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I was like, oh my god, we have not seen each other physically.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the longest, I think we've ever gone without seeing each other since we met.
[SPEAKER_00]: Years ago, like a decade ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I haven't felt that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like this false sense of closeness and intimacy that it's just an existence, which I guess exists with a parasocial relationship too, that false sense of intimacy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and like obviously I'm like, you know, if I hadn't seen you in a year and like I hadn't talked in a year, I'm really just been writing letters, it would have been like, this built a thing of like, oh my god, and you know, perhaps when I see it will be less, it means it's like I'm being exciting, but it's a little bit less of like a major event because it's like we've still talked and we've still been able to reach each other and I know how you like physically change, like it won't be that crazy to see you're doing hair color, like it's not it, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all quite sad because the ultimate goal is to keep us all not actually with each other while these styles, that one scene and Wally, not to be we live in a society, but we're the one ladies talking to her friend on her weird iPad thingy and then the friend is actually sitting right next to her and they didn't even realize there's something like that, it's like a scene in Wally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is to keep us sitting in our beds and maybe that's going to be the theme of this season, but we're excited to kick it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely a more
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably a more serious season in a lot of ways than the last one, but I'm really excited about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Needs you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-